


The Drop

by Neyiea



Series: misfit(toy)s [5]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Episode: s04e18 That's Entertainment, Gen, no one stays dead in gotham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 14:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18741118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Jerome has done so many terrible things.But that doesn't mean that he deserves to die.





	1. Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> A dainty multi-chapter before I go back to writing a few more of my beloved one-shots, before I attempt to start tackling something a bit more substantial(?). 
> 
> And, uh, just in case you were planning to read through to the end of this first part without taking a look at the tags (or rather, one tag in particular), please, I have not been building up on Bruce and Jerome's connection for it to end like canon. 
> 
> Anyways! Here we go, enjoy. :)

He knows it’s unlikely, but there’s a small part of Bruce that wonders if Jerome knew that the date he’d chosen to enact his plan was also his birthday. He wonders if this was meant to be a macabre present as well as a gruesome spectacle. 

His eyes drift over to Jeremiah Valeska, sitting beside him in stony silence as they make their way into the city. His pale face is a firm reminder that no, this was about more than himself. The timing was merely a coincidence. Each passing minute brings them closer to someone who Jeremiah has been trying to avoid for over half of his life, and though Bruce is sure that no harm will come to either of them, he still finds himself wishing that Jeremiah hadn’t been dragged into this. 

He knows how uncomfortable it can be to be the focus of Jerome’s malicious intentions, but he’s also been able to survive it each time that they have crossed paths. Jeremiah… He’s not like Bruce, not in a bad way, but he’s different. He’s a civilian who’s never gotten mixed up in one of Gotham’s wicked spectacles before. He’s a person who’s never had to wrestle with doing what was right versus what felt right. A person who hasn’t looked in a mirror and seen something dark and frightening reflected back at him. 

A person who’s never had another’s blood on his hands. 

He’s ordinary in a way Bruce hasn’t been for a long time. Whatever Jerome has planned for them both, Jeremiah is bound to have a rougher time of it. 

Jeremiah’s eyes flicker over to him, perhaps sensing that he was being watched. Bruce attempts a reassuring smile, but it feels wrong on his lips. He lets it fade and reaches a gentle hand out to rest on Jeremiah’s shoulder instead.

He won’t tell him not to worry, Jeremiah deserves to be allowed to feel whatever this situation brings forth in him, but another seed of truth could go a long way to settle him.

It was too bad that their first meeting had to be like this. Jeremiah really did have a brilliant mind, and his plans really could change Gotham for the better. Bruce hopes that after this Jeremiah doesn’t suggest that they never see each other again. He thinks that, if they joined forces, they could do so many great things.

He thinks there’s even a possibility that they could become friends.

It would be nice to make an ordinary friend. 

“I’ll be there with you,” he promises, “every step of the way.”

Jeremiah averts his eyes and nods, mumbling a word of thanks. He’s becoming more nervous the closer they get and Bruce can’t fault him for it.

If only Jerome had stayed in Arkham. If only Jerome had never come back to life. If only Jerome had never gotten involved with Theo Galavan.

If only Jerome had never been put through the abuse in his childhood that no doubt helped to forge him into the man he was today. The reminder, as always, makes something inside of Bruce ache and wish that the world wasn’t so unkind to children. It also makes him wonder if Jeremiah…

But there’s no time to think about if Jeremiah also suffered at the hands of his family. They’re here.

And it only takes a minute or two for their situation to go south.

Just over an hour ago Bruce was contemplating making a wish as he blew out the candles of his birthday cake, even though he supposes he’s been too old for wishes for years. Now he’s sitting on a televised stage, in front of an audience, as Jerome’s quick fingers strap a bomb-collar around his neck.

“Don’t act so sullen, Bruce,” Jerome whispers to him, “I told you I’d see you again. Did I take too long for you? Is that it?”

Bruce doesn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Jerome ruffles his hair with a rough chuckle.

“You were the one who was trailing Freeze a few nights ago, weren’t you?”

He was. He still has bruises on his tailbone from wiping out on the slick, wet ice.

Jerome must see some kind of affirmation on his face, because he smirks and states, “I knew it. Why were you following him?”

Bruce may as well buy the GCPD some valuable time by giving Jerome what he wants: answers.

“When a known—and not terribly incognito—criminal is wandering around at night, what else am I to do?”

Especially when he’d been so desperate to find a trace of Jerome before this next plot had an opportunity to unfold.

Jerome beams wide enough that the corners of his eyes crinkle. It’s probably the least malicious smile he’s ever given Bruce. “Well Bruce I’m not exactly an expert on what the sane masses expect, behavior-wise, but I think that most people would have run the other way.”

He’s not wrong, Bruce finds himself thinking for a moment before he remembers where he is, how many people are watching, and who is with him. He really can’t afford to forget that they’re not alone, this time. His eyes briefly flick over to where Jeremiah is sitting, and he sees a wary confusion on his face in the half-second before he turns his eyes forward.

Jerome, perceptive as ever, catches the movement and follows Bruce’s previous line of sight.

“Huh.” He doesn’t sound surprised or confused, just thoughtful. “You two know each other or something?”

One of Jerome’s followers has started putting a bomb-collar on Jeremiah, and Bruce watches him go even paler out of the corner of his eye. Dealing with Jerome when they were one-on-one was much easier than this situation where whatever he might say, or not say, could be used against someone else immediately. 

“We’ve been acquainted for thirty entire minutes, if you must know.”

“Ah.” Jerome’s eyes start gleaming with something as he looks between Bruce and Jeremiah like he’s figuring out a puzzle. What the mystery is, Bruce can’t even hazard a guess at. “I thought it’d take a bit more time and a few more bodies to force him down here, and I thought you’d be barging in much sooner. Instead you arrived together, my pair of sacrificial lambs. I told you that your heroic tendencies were going to get you killed.” Jerome chortles for a second before abruptly going silent, his eyebrows furrowing. “Wait. Were you unconscious at the time? It’s getting hard to keep track of our heart-to-hearts.” He looks over at Jeremiah again, and his lips purse tightly together. 

“Is there a reason why you’re doing this?” Bruce doesn’t really want to incite more conversation, but at least he knows he can endure Jerome’s undivided attention when it’s focused on him. He’s not sure if Jeremiah will be able to withstand it. 

Jerome casts a glance in his direction.

“You’ll see,” Jerome promises him. Then he turns his attention back to his brother.

There’s an animosity in Jerome that Bruce doesn’t fully understand, not that he can claim to understand everything about Jerome—or sibling relationships, for that matter—but it seems a little much for it to just be because Jeremiah was an ideal child who had an opportunity to make the most of himself. Maybe, once Jeremiah was out of the picture, that was when Jerome’s uncle began to—

He can’t let himself think about that. Not now. Not here. He’s got a bomb around his neck and people are staring up at the stage he’s on, all courtesy of the one for whom his heart is currently bleeding. He can’t afford to think about the cruel injustices of the world, or about how much he would have liked to take Jerome’s uncle by the throat and—

“You’re as crazy as I am,” Jerome tells Jeremiah, “it’s in your DNA.”

“We are practically identical. You are a killer. It’s your nature,” he says as he cuts Jeremiah’s bonds. “Stop trying to fight it.” 

He places the knife in Jeremiah’s hand.

Bruce remembers a time when he’d had something as sharp as a knife in his own grasp. Remembers the rage flowing inside of him, mixing with the desire to make Jerome pay for all that he’d done. He remembers what he’d felt when he looked up and saw himself in the midst of holding the mirror shard aloft, almost ready to end Jerome once and for all. 

Jerome really did have a flare for bringing out the worst in people. In that moment Bruce had been afraid of himself, for himself, and he had hated what he saw reflected back at him.

“Take your best shot,” Jerome urges Jeremiah, much like he’d urged Bruce in the maze of mirrors.

For a few moments Jeremiah is still and silent, and then—

It doesn’t go well. 

But Bruce didn’t wrongfully put his faith in James Gordon, Lucius Fox, and the GCPD. When the show takes a turn Bruce is quick to focus his attention on Firefly, disarming her before she can start targeting the multiple cars that encircle the crowd. Once she’s dealt with he finds himself kneeling beside Jeremiah, who’s heaving in painful breaths that Bruce can’t help but feel partially responsible for. 

He steadies his hands and unlatches the bindings keeping the bomb collar against Jeremiah’s neck. Jeremiah’s eyes are flittering around, unfocussed, terrified, and Bruce lays his hands on either side of Jeremiah’s face. He’s careful to be as gentle as he can, not wanting to be the cause of any new hurt.

“Mister Valeska,” he calls, and the sound of his name causes Jeremiah’s eyes to drift onto him. His breathing starts to even out, and some colour returns to his face.

“After all of this,” he says, voice wavering slightly, “I don’t believe there’s a need to be quite so formal.”

“Jeremiah,” Bruce amends and Jeremiah’s lips quirk in small, slightly pained smile. “It’s going to be alright,” he tells him, although it’s partially to assure himself as well. He looks away for a moment, catches sight of Detective Gordon ducking into an alleyway, and makes a decision that he hopes he won’t regret later. He turns his attention back to Jeremiah, and his hands drop from his face. “You’re safe now. I’m sorry that it turned out like this.”

And then he stands and runs in the direction he’d seen Detective Gordon go.

There’s chaos and panic in the streets, too many people running around without a clear destination in mind, and Bruce fears he’s lost his lead for a moment when the sound of a gunshot causes his eyes to snap skyward.

Standing on the ledge of a rooftop, his back to the street, is a familiar figure.

Bruce races inside the building and charges up the stairs, his heart stuttering in his chest when he hears the dulled sound of another gunshot.

There are so many things that Jerome deserves. Bruce fervently believes that death is not one of them.

He makes it to the roof and sees Detective Gordon leaning over the edge and for a split second something like despair wells up inside of him. Too little, too late. No one had ever been in time to save Jerome, not in any way that mattered. But then he hears the Detective talking and he rushes forward, thoughts nothing but a blur as he unties laundry lines and twists them around himself in what he hopes will be a half-decent harness. 

Then he’s in the spot Jerome had stood. Detective Gordon is raising wide, frightened eyes, his mouth opening to no doubt order Bruce to stay put even as he steps over the ledge and drops.

When he comes to an abrupt stop the constriction of the rope burns him even through his clothes, but Bruce has a grip on Jerome’s hands and he’s not letting go. Not ever.

Jerome is laughing in hysterical disbelief, and Detective Gordon is yelling, and Bruce’s heart is pounding in his ears. Everything is too loud, too much.

His grip on Jerome’s hands tightens and the slick feeling of what must be blood on his gloves makes Bruce feel dizzy. There must have been safer places for Jerome to run off to instead of a rooftop. What was the point? Why was he set on slipping away like this?

Had he meant for this to be his end?

“Decided to join my going away party, huh, Bruce?”

Bruce stares at Jerome’s wide smile and fights to keep down the rising panic, rasping, “I thought I’d drop in before you could do something stupid.”

Jerome’s eyes lock on his, glinting with unconcealed mirth.

The rope tied around Bruce wavers from side to side as Gordon starts attempting to pull them both up.

“Playing hero again, are you?”

Someone has to, he thinks. Someone has to look out for people, even the ones who others might rather see rotting in a corrupt asylum or a grave. Someone has to look out for everyone—even those who may have ended up different, if only there had been people willing to help them earlier. Someone has to start helping these people before they get to the point where they believe that the path that leads them further into darkness is the only option left to them.

And someone should help them after they’ve reached that point, too.

Bruce believes in rehabilitation. In redemption.

He has to.

“This city is going to go crazy, Bruce Wayne, and here you are trying to save little old me.” Jerome’s face is shadowed with something that makes Bruce’s breath catch in his throat. It’s not unlike how he’d looked when he spoke about how no one had ever helped him before, back at his uncle’s diner. It passes just as quickly as it had come this time around, too, but the emotional impact is just as great. “There is something so very _wrong_ with you,” his voice is delighted, even as his bloodiest glove starts to slip out of Bruce’s grip.

“Jerome,” Bruce starts, and he doesn’t know what else to say. His eyes are starting to sting. “Jerome. Just hang on.”

“I think not.”

Jerome’s bloody hand slips from his, and Bruce grits his teeth as all of Jerome’s weight pulls at his other arm.

“I have a legacy to leave.”

Bruce can feel it, the way Jerome’s hand is slipping from out of the glove that Bruce is holding onto with all of his strength. 

“Jerome, please,” I can help you, he wants to say. I will help you. But Jerome cuts him off.

“I’ll be watching from the other side. Goodbye, Bruce.”

He slips. Bruce’s hand clutches at nothing but an empty glove and he laughs as he falls, falls, falls until he crashes through the roof of a car.

Bruce stares and waits, even as his body starts drifting upwards. After all that it had taken for Theo Galavan to stay dead the second time around, after all the strange gifts that were bestowed without consent onto the people who’d been made test subjects by the doctors of Indian Hill, there’s a part of him that thinks maybe Jerome isn’t gone. 

He doesn’t move from where he’s splayed against the roof of the car, but Bruce’s eyes stay glued on him until everything shifts and he’s forcibly turned away.

“Bruce.” Detective Gordon’s shaking hands are on his shoulders. “What were you thinking? You could have fallen, you could have—”

“I didn’t—” the sting in his eyes is no longer ignorable, and it’s both embarrassing and devastating, that this is how he reacts to the death of the person who’s done so much to hurt him; to hurt so many. “I didn’t want him to fall.” His hand tightens on the glove. If he’d been faster, if he’d been stronger. “But I couldn’t,” his voice cracks, “couldn’t save—”

His face is pressed into Detective Gordon’s neck, the man’s arms winding around him. His hug is a little too tight, like he’s not entirely sure what to do, but Bruce relaxes against him in the same way he would relax against Alfred, grateful for the comfort.

“I didn’t want him to fall either,” Gordon confesses in a hushed voice. “But it’s not your fault, Bruce. He wanted to fall, and that’s not on you, alright?”

Bruce nods, but the reassurance does little to make him feel better. When Detective Gordon lets go of him he finds himself looking down, one last time, just to be certain.

Jerome hasn’t moved. Bystanders are starting to mill around.

And from his vantage point on the roof Bruce can make out a distant flash of red hair drawing closer to the wreckage.

He takes a deep breath, pushes his confusing, conflicting feelings aside, and slips Jerome’s glove into his pocket before he heads for the stairs.


	2. Jeremiah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, pre-spray Jeremiah, I am going to miss you.

Jeremiah looks upon the broken body of his twin, and he feels like he’s about to be sick.

As children Jerome had often been cruel, maybe not quite to the degree that Jeremiah would whisper to his mother about, but enough that he’d known that someday all of that negativity and wicked intent would burst out, destroying anything or anyone who was unlucky enough to be nearby when it happened. When he’d heard about Jerome murdering their mother, when he’d heard about all the vile things he’d done since then, he’d felt miserable but validated. 

Because he had been proven right in the end, hadn’t he?

But then—

‘So that’s why you made her think,’ Jerome’s voice hisses in his mind, ‘that I tried to kill you. Right?’

Jerome was always going to go crazy. Jeremiah had known that for years. It was all just a simple math equation; so many suppressed violent acts per week multiplied by so many years of holding them in equals a monster without measure. 

‘You turned everyone I ever loved against me.’

His neck itches from the collar that had been strapped around it. His ribs ache from the intensity of Jerome’s kicks. The hand that had held Jerome’s knife shakes. 

His heart, strangely, twinges in his chest as his overactive mind begins to wonder…

He’d only been a child. But Jerome had been, too. He’s spent the better part of his life telling himself that the embellishments he’d added on to Jerome’s most wicked games had been a natural thing to do. But he’s also spent the better part of his life knowing that, one day, Jerome would come after him with a vengeance. 

Maybe… He wasn’t as free from guilt as he would like everyone to believe. 

Perhaps things could have ended differently, even if the only deviation was that when Jerome finally snapped Jeremiah wouldn’t have been the predominant target that he’d transformed himself into via his exaggerations. Perhaps there would have been even more variances.

But it’s too late to think about those possibilities. His brother is dead, and there would be no coming back this time around.

He hated Jerome but, once upon a time, he’d loved him.

Maybe that love hadn’t been completely eradicated by years apart and vile deeds, because Jeremiah should feel triumph at surviving Jerome’s long-awaited ploy to end his life. He should feel like he’s free to live any way he sees fit, without having to hide. 

Instead he feels oddly hollow, as if he’s lost a piece of himself.

He clenches his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, then wipes a hand over one of his suspiciously stinging eyes. He needs to leave. He needs to be alone in his labyrinth where he’s safe, even if it’s from everything except for his own thoughts and emotions. Jeremiah moves to walk past the wreckage, to leave Jerome behind him for good, but the call of his name makes him come to a standstill.

Bruce Wayne. 

Something warm begins to fill up the emptiness in his chest.

Jeremiah knows that he’s brilliant, of course. One does not get as far as he has at his age and remain oblivious to such a blatant fact. But he’s not usually around people who fully recognize his genius or appreciate it above and beyond what an employer would, merely happy to have someone as smart as he is working for them instead of against them. Bruce’s opinion shouldn’t carry so much weight, but the way he had looked at Jeremiah’s work back at his bunker… The way he’d spoken about standing up to terror…

He’s more than what he appears to be. He’s more than what the gossip columns in newspapers make him out to be. Brave, and smart, and stronger than anyone would expect. Bruce is a puzzle, and puzzles have always captured his interest.

There must have been a reason why Jerome wanted him up on that stage just as much as he’d wanted Jeremiah.

“I meant what I said about your work being of importance to this city,” Bruce tells him, truth practically radiating from his very being. His honest regard for the project that Jeremiah is the most passionate about is striking.

Perhaps it is overly familiar of him but after the events of today—their unexpectedly amiable introduction, surviving Jerome together, Bruce assisting him, calling him by his given name, and approaching him when he could have just let Jeremiah continue walking away—he’s already begun to tentatively think of Bruce as a friend. 

“Let Wayne Enterprises fund your work with a grant.” 

Jeremiah goes still for several moments, shocked.

That would be a dream come true. For something so good to happen at the end of this nightmare of a day, he can hardly believe that it’s real. 

He wordlessly offers Bruce his hand, just like he had only a few hours ago, and Bruce takes it with a firm grip. When Jeremiah looks closely at his face he can see that Bruce’s eyes are rimmed in red, as if he’d recently been crying.

Jeremiah can’t fault him for that. It’s been a tough day for them both, and in more ways than he himself had expected. He holds Bruce’s hand a little bit tighter, hoping that Bruce finds comfort in it just as Jeremiah had found comfort in his presence throughout their shared ordeal. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

Bruce offers him a faint smile, and Jeremiah can’t seem to help but echo the expression on his own face.

When he turns away he could almost swear that he feels Bruce watching him leave and after several steps he looks back, just for a moment, just to be sure.

Bruce, unperturbed at being caught, raises his hand in a small wave.

And, just like his infectious smile, Jeremiah finds himself matching it.


	3. Jerome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this is going to be a bit vague, and when the next parts that focus a bit more on Jeremiah start coming out it's sure going to look as if nothing has changed regarding Jerome's fall, but hang in there. (And imagine the chaos that would have immediately erupted if word got out that Jerome evaded death, again.)

Darkness. Pain. A light shining directly into his eyes, one at a time. Hushed, panicked voices. Rough hands holding down his flailing limbs. The prick of a needle being stuck into a vein.

Darkness. 

Nothing but excruciatingly boring darkness.

But then—

Pain, considerably dulled, but there.

Voices, panicked, but not hushed. 

He remembers—

‘How are they treating you?’

He remembers—

‘No one deserves that.’

He remembers—

A hand tightly holding onto his own. A voice telling him to hang on.

Bruce Wayne was a foolish paragon of mercy, throwing himself into danger in an attempt to save someone like Jerome.

But he had saved him, hadn’t he? Not once, but twice. A fall from the height of that roof should have been enough to kill him, but Bruce had cut the distance into something survivable by jumping off the edge of the building wrapped up in nothing but laundry lines—

There is something so very wrong with Bruce Wayne. It must be the same thing that makes him so interesting. A spark of madness that occasionally lights up like a beacon, drawing the gaze of dark creatures who recognize the signs of insanity. There’s something in him that broke, once, and never healed correctly, leaving razor-edges in unexpected places. There’s something inside of him that, if he weren’t rich enough to pass off his occasional bouts of lunacy with eccentricity, would make him just as crazy as—

“—don’t fucking care,” one of the irritatingly terrified voices is yelling. “Did you not see what happened to the clock tower?!”

“He’s our responsibility! If it’s just me here what am I supposed to do if he wakes up?”

Too late for that. He is awake. If these pathetic wimps had wanted to live a life without the fear of him consuming their thoughts they should have smothered him with a pillow or something.

Jerome tries moving and finds that he can twitch his fingers. His eyes open just a sliver to gaze around.

Not a jail cell. Not a hospital room. Not Arkham, either.

Was someone trying to keep his survival a secret?

“—don’t give a fuck! I’m getting my kids and getting out—”

A door slams.

The other voice starts cursing, angry and desperate. The sound of glass and ceramic breaking echoes through the house, whoever’s been left behind unable to do anything but rage against the situation they’ve been put in. They’ll tire themselves out if they keep going on as they are. Once they’re emotionally and physically run down they’ll be an easy enough obstacle to overtake.

Jerome smirks and lets his eyes fall shut. It won’t be much longer now.

Since he’s still alive he’ll have to take a good look at how his ultimate plan has unfolded. He wonders what happened to his Legion of Horribles, what happened to his brother, what happened to Bruce Wayne. Maybe, once he’s able to walk around, he’ll have a little chat with the person who’s decided to throw every glass and dish in this house against a wall.

It pays to be an informed citizen in this city, after all. But he’s certain that some of his questions cannot be answered by just anyone. 

He wonders if Jeremiah, more like him than he would ever want to admit, had also seen something inside of Bruce that made him want to take a closer look. Jerome had assumed that had been why they arrived together, with Jeremiah ahead of schedule, in any case.

If everything had gone according to plan Jeremiah has been twisted into something that nightmares are made of, more like Jerome than he’d ever been before. Jerome finds himself wondering if Jeremiah, too, will find himself fixated by the depths of Bruce’s character.

He wonders if Jeremiah, transformed to do things that Jerome could not, had succeeded in killing Bruce once and for all. The thought is there one moment and gone in another, a flash of something that is easily dismissed. Bruce had always managed to survive whatever Jerome threw at him, besting the odds every time. Jeremiah would be no different.

His hand curls into a fist, as if trying to grip back at a memory.

He remembers—

For a moment there, shocked and delighted at Bruce’s continued tendency to do the unexpected and brimming with a feeling that he’s not entirely sure he could put a name to, he’d considered hanging on. 

A laugh slips through his lips, easily concealed by the continuous crashing a few rooms over. 

Boy billionaire Bruce Wayne, his savior once again.

The only person, it seemed, who had ever been in time to save Jerome.


End file.
